The Economic Times 

Human rights vs animal rights 

 H SIKKA

Sr. President (Corp)

Nicholas Piramal

Animals play a vital role in drug discovery

MIGHT is right, not only in jungles and Bihar but also with a handful of NGOs who, under the umbrella of the committee constituted for the purpose of Control & Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), have rated animals much higher than the humans, severely affecting new drug discovery in India in the process. In the name of protecting animals, these NGOs have in fact succeeded in causing extreme levels of frustration and harm to the scientific community.

Animal experiments play a very important role in new drug discovery; right from the detection of interesting biological activity to obtaining the Investigational New Drug (IND) status, which is necessary for initiating clinical trials. Experiments on animals are the only way to demonstrate that the new drug substance has efficacy, lack of toxicity and is safe enough to administer to humans.

Experiments of Animals by Establishments and Breeding (EAEB) Rules, 1998, through meticulously planned bottlenecks, not only has put to rest potential new drugs, it has also sunk hopes of scores of patients waiting for the emergence of an ideal drug treatment. Further, by not permitting contract research organizations (CROs) to perform animal research for other establishments not registered with CPCSEA, it has discouraged many Indian companies that are too small to establish their own research facilities from contracting their work to CROs within the country, thereby forcing them to go abroad.

Banning import of animals for experiment purposes also prevents researchers from getting access to recent advances in biological sciences. Imposing restrictions on funding by agencies that give grants to research involving animals has further ensured a slow death to the basic research in biological sciences in India.

India as a signatory to the GATT treaty and having accepted to honour the IPR by the year 2005, can ill afford to create roadblocks for new research that would be the very basis of discovering cost effective drugs.